The Road Less Traveled
by Waffle Maker Studios
Summary: One-shot AU. That day in the woods when Hiccup first met Toothless, he spared his life, and went down a path he could have never foreseen. But when Hiccup makes a different decision, there is no going back.
**Sal-u-TATIONS Internet!**

 **Hiatus=Done**

 **After struggling to get through the hardest year of school in my entire life, I'm finally out of finals week(s) and can actually write. What better way to kick off this writing season than with a fic I've been wanting to write pretty much since I started?** **I apologize in advance for any feels I might actually cause.**

 **Anywho, I have been struggling to find the right words to express the emotions that I feel with this story concept. It might get turned into a muti-chapter story, but for now, I just wanted to stray down the road less traveled, a possibility that no one else really seems to want to acknowledge (Although if anyone else has done this, LINK ME THE FIC SO I CAN READ IT)**

 **Some good songs to listen to while reading for max feels are Wars Of Faith by Audiomachine, then Light of the World by Nick Murray (featuring Merethe Soltvedt ^U^). Let's start this off good.**

 **Carry on.**

The Road Less Traveled

 _Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—_

 _I took the road less traveled by_

 _And that has made all the difference_

-Robert Frost

"The Road Not Taken"

Hiccup gasped, and dropped back to the ground. The dragon was _right there_. Had it seen him?

He stood up again, heart pounding in his chest. His hands were shaking, but he managed to pull himself up over the ridge, and slid back down towards the Night Fury. It was wrapped in a bola, _his_ bola, and obviously going nowhere.

A grin of relief spread across his face. "I did it." He murmured. "Oh yes, this fixes everything!" Hiccup set one foot against the dragon's flank, and proudly said to the air "I have brought down this mighty be-"  
The dragon growled, and Hiccup stumbled back, pulling the knife from his belt as he did so. His gaze flickered over the panting Night Fury. The dragon's eyes opened, and if Hiccup hadn't known better he would have almost believed the dragon was...scared.

A chill went through him, but he shook it off, rolling his shoulders back and taking the knife more firmly in his hands. "I'm gonna kill you dragon. I'm...I'm gonna cut out your heart and take it to my father." That was probably a little extravagant, but it didn't matter.

"I am viking." His voice was a little too quiet. "I am a _viking_!" His voice carried through the trees around them. Taking a deep breath, he raised the knife above his head. Just for a second, he allowed himself to meet the Night Fury's gaze.

The intelligence, the terror, the _understanding_ in the monster's face was enough to shake him to the core.

He couldn't kill the dragon. He couldn't.

And yet...if he returned with actual proof that he had killed the Night Fury, maybe the others wouldn't hate him so much. Maybe Snotlout and the Thorstons wouldn't tease him so relentlessly.

Maybe his dad would stop looking at him like he was a failure.

Hiccup closed his eyes. He wouldn't be able to kill the dragon if it kept looking at him. He had to get it together.

"Come on," He whispered to himself.

He raised the knife, prepared to bring it down, but couldn't. And tried again. But he couldn't bring himself to do it.

When he opened his eyes again, he met the dragon's gaze full on. He tried to summon some of the anger, the passion that everyone else always seemed to have when it came to fighting dragons, but all he could muster was a weak frustration at his own incapability.

What would his father say when he found out that even when the dragon was completely helpless and immobilized, Hiccup still couldn't kill it? He didn't have to tell Stoick. But he would find out. Nothing ever happened on the island that the chief didn't know about.

If he did kill the dragon...what _then_?

But killing the dragon just felt wrong. He set the knife down flat on his hair, looking over the majestic dragon he had brought down.

"I did this." Hiccup said. Cursing himself to high Valhalla and back for being a coward, he set to cutting the ropes that held the dragon fast.

He paused. The knife was so close to the Night Fury's flank. It would be so easy. It would be _so easy..._

It wasn't hatred.

It wasn't fear.

It wasn't bloodlust.

There was hardly any emotion at all as he took the knife, and slit through the Night Fury's body.

~(/\\)~

It had started to rain on his way back, and that made it all the harder to see as the night fell. But Hiccup pressed on, his grisly prize held grimly in his hand. The heart wasn't as large as he had expected it to be, but it was still heavy, and required a lot of effort to carry. Still, he had gotten this far and wasn't just going to give up.

There hadn't been an attack tonight, thank the gods, so everyone was in bed, trying to get what sleep they could, considering the times. He trudged through the streets unnoticed by the few drunk revelers who couldn't care less whether or not Hel's demons had come.

After all, he was just the screw-up.

He pushed his way through the door, where his father was waiting.

"Hiccup? Where in Thor's name have you been?"

Hiccup didn't look up. He just lifted the Night Fury's heart up towards his father.

Very few times in his life had Hiccup ever seen Stoick the Vast speechless. His father seemed to have no words here for a long while.

"Hiccup...what is this?"

"I told you I shot down a Night Fury."

He had intended to put some sort of power into the words. Perhaps anger, or betrayal, or pride. But he couldn't muster any emotion. His voice was flat, tired, exhausted. Just like he was. It shouldn't have been so draining, just killing a dragon effortlessly, but it was less physical exhaustion and more a sense of...wrongness about the whole thing. Like he had just done something fundamentally incorrect.

"You killed the dragon?"

Hiccup just nodded.

Stoick slapped his son on the back, laughing. "That's my boy! I knew you had it in you! Oh, when everyone else finds out...It's a good thing I signed you up for dragon training, first thing in the morning. This is a sign, my boy!"  
"What?" Hiccup finally looked up. "You signed me up for dragon training?"

"Of course! I just knew you'd turn out to be something special! You killed the _Night Fury_ , that's something to be proud of. You'll be the champion for sure!"

Funny, how his father had neglected to ever mention those feelings before.

Stoick took the dragon's heart out of Hiccup's hands, and placed an axe in them instead. "You're a viking, now."

He nodded again. There wasn't really anything that he could say. His father lifted him up by the shoulders until he was standing up straight.

"That means you walk like us," He lifted the axe, "You talk like us," Stoick pointed to his head. "You think like us."

So not at all, then.

"Train hard. I'll be back. Probably."

That's right. His father was leaving on another expedition to try and find the dragon's nest, which Hiccup hardly found wise, but he couldn't say anything on the subject.

"And I'll be here," He murmured as his father shut the door behind him.

"Maybe..."

Real fatigue, physical exhaustion, hit him hard, and he stumbled upstairs to his bedroom, trying to ignore the blood on his hands and shirt. Right now, he could barely keep his eyes open. But his mind was whirling with everything that had happened.

He pulled off his shirt, not wanting to get his bed all covered in the dragon's blood, and did his best to get the blood off his hands with the water he kept in his room before collapsing into his bed.

Why didn't he feel success at killing the dragon? Anyone else on the entire island would have fought and likely killed for the opportunity to get their hands on that Night Fury, and the one person who did manage to kill it...didn't care.

No, it wasn't that he didn't care.

He regretted it.

To what end was this? A few brief months of fame followed by everyone going back to ignoring him? On the off chance that they did actually start to like him, what next?

The look in the dragon's eyes right before he killed it haunted him. Those bright green eyes were so intelligent. So compassionate, despite the fact that Hiccup had been the one to shoot it down.

That was why it felt so wrong to kill the dragon. He wasn't just killing some mindless beast. It was like killing a person. A friend.

Hiccup tried his best to get his mind to stop thinking about it. He needed the sleep. Dragon training would start early the next morning, and he couldn't afford to make a fool of himself. He had to use this shot the best he could. Determined to get a little bit of rest, he rolled over and tucked the blanket tighter around himself.

He didn't fall asleep for a long time.

~(/\\)~

"Hiccup?"

He looked up to see Astrid walking over to him. Every time he saw her, it just made him think of responsibility, and how he would probably end up marrying her, probably very soon. It would do good for the people of Berk to see their chief marry, to the bravest woman on the island, no less.

"Are you okay? You look a little depressed."

"Nah, I'm just thinking." He was standing over the edge of the cliffs overlooking the ocean, and the wind whipped through his hair.

"Thinking about what?"

"Just...about the day that I killed the Night Fury."

She smiled. "I remember that. Gods, that was years ago, but I still remember how furious I was. Hiccup the Useless had managed to kill himself a dragon, but Astrid Hofferson had done nothing."

"You got to kill the Monstrous Nightmare."

Astrid laughed. "You were a close second, Haddock." There was a pause. "Why would you be thinking about that?"

Hiccup turned to face her. "Have you ever gotten the feeling that you've done something wrong? Not like guilt, but just this weird feeling that whatever you do next will have important consequences?"

She shrugged. "Not really. I go with my gut, and it's gotten me this far. Why? What's wrong?"

"That day..." He smiled weakly. "I never really told anyone else this, not even my dad, but...I almost didn't kill that dragon."

"Well, I'm not surprised. I assume you were pretty terrified, considering that I would be shaking like a leaf in a windstorm."

"No. Astrid, I was going to let it go."

She didn't respond, and he continued talking.

"It wasn't just a dragon. It was...smart. It understood what was happening, and it was terrified, and ever since I killed it, I can still remember the way it looked at me. Ever since then I wonder if I was wrong to do what I did."

"How could it be wrong?" She asked. "I mean, where would we be if you hadn't killed it? If you had let it go, it would still be terrorizing us. Sure, things haven't exactly been peachy around here, especially since your dad died, but honestly, what would have happened?"

"That's the question I ask myself every day, Astrid."

"You're really serious. You were going to let that dragon go." She wasn't angry. She didn't sound betrayed.

Hiccup nodded. "And still to this day, I wonder. Really think about what would have happened if I had made a different decision."

He would have kept going after that dragon. He wouldn't have left it alone, surely. Meaning that he would probably be dead.

"Well, you can't change the past, Hiccup. Sometimes we just have to make a decision and hope for the best. We can think about other roads we might have taken but...in the end, you're here. Now."

He nodded. "Yeah. You're right."

She put her hand on his arm. "You did the best you could, Hiccup."

He nodded. "Yeah. I did."


End file.
